It was a perfectly grand feeling---the feeling I had the next day and
have had every day since I got here--that I was in a place where there
wasn't a single member of my family to tell me not to do things I
wanted to do or to do what I did not want to do; and usually as I dress
in the morning I dance a new kind of highland fling which I made up for
times when I feel particularly happy. Everybody is well and Mother and
the girls are having a lovely time in a place where I would have had a
stupid one, being neither grown up nor a kid, but an in-betweener--too
young for some ages and not old enough for others; and here in
Twickenham Town I am as free as air, and Father is coming to see me as
often as he can. I can't let myself think much about Father or I would
take the train straight home.
I had begged him to let me stay with him, but neither he nor Mother
would agree. Just because I got the Grome medal at school they
imagined I had studied too hard and needed a quiet, restful summer in
the mountains; but I will never study too hard while on this little
planet called the earth. I got the medal because Billy said I'd never
sit still long enough to study for it, and just to show him he very
often does not know what he is talking about I made up my mind to get
it.
The only thing I ever expect to work hard over is one book. I am going
to write one book that the critics will call a Discovery. It is to be
dull and dry and dreary, and therefore it will be thought deep and
strong and big, and only a few people will know that it has been
written. After that I am going to write books that sell, write what
people want to read--things that make them forget for a few moments
that at times this world is but a fleeting show and there is a good
deal of rot in it. If I can I am going to make people laugh, though I
don't think I can do much in that line. I see the funny side of things
too quickly to ever be able to write them down, as that takes time; but
I am certainly going to be cheerful, and I am not going to croak. I
don't mean I am going to be smiling all the time. I am not. Perpetual
smilers are more than human nature can stand. Nothing is ever wrong,
everything is beautiful, their smiles seem to say, which isn't so.
There is a lot of life that is wrong, and any day horrid, hurting
things may pop up, but that doesn't mean you've got to sit down and
make a bosom friend of dolefulness. Some of the things you can shake
your fist at, and some turn your back on, and some you have to face;
but no matter what happens you can buck up and begin again if you get
knocked out or hit in the back. And that's what I hope I will have
sense enough to do--get up and get a move on when things go wrong.
So far nothing has gone wrong in Twickenham. Everybody has been lovely
to me, and all sorts of ages have been to see me and asked me to their
homes, and if they know my name is not really and truly Kitty Canary
they never say so or mention my family, which is very nice of them, for
I am sure they must talk of who I am and where I came from, that being
the first thing done here when a stranger arrives. The reason I think
they haven't let me off among themselves is that one of Miss Susanna's
boarders started to say something to me on the subject one day and I
told her I was a very plain person, almost common, and she could tell
any one she chose. She has never mentioned the subject since. Just
Kitty Canary is all I am going to be this summer, and if anybody
doesn't care for me as Kitty Canary I don't care for them to care for
me as Katherine Bird. So endeth that.